Apple surpassed chipmaker Nvidia to become the world's most valuable company. Apple's market value reached $4.88 trillion, while Nvidia's fell 3.5% to $4.86 trillion. This marks the iPhone maker's return to the top spot for the first time in more than a year.
Nvidia had claimed the title of most valuable company in October, surpassing a $5 trillion market value. Apple, meanwhile, last month introduced a revamped Siri AI assistant that can better understand the personal context of users' questions, access real-time information from the web, and perform more complex tasks on their behalf.
Michael Monaghan, founder of Founder ETFs, told Al Jazeera that market sentiment is shifting from model makers to semiconductors, and then to companies that can turn computation into customer experiences and outcomes. "Apple investors initially questioned the company's low AI spending, but now they see it as an advantage. There is an optimistic picture that Apple can benefit from consumer AI without spending at the scale of cloud infrastructure," Monaghan said.
Apple's rise comes ahead of its third-quarter earnings report, scheduled for release on July 30. Company executives had forecast sales growth of 14% to 17% in the previous quarter.
Apple had long lagged behind rivals in artificial intelligence and only unveiled the advanced Siri to the public last week. But analysts believe the treasure trove of personal data stored on a typical iPhone could become a significant advantage for the company's AI ambitions. "This is a natural extension of Apple founder Steve Jobs' philosophy of starting with the customer experience and working backward to the technology needed to deliver it," Monaghan added.
Meanwhile, a high-level leadership change is expected at Apple. CEO Tim Cook is expected to hand over the reins in September to John Ternus, who has served as head of hardware engineering since 2021.
Pressure on Nvidia comes amid growing competition in the semiconductor sector. Micron surpassed a $1 trillion market value in May, while South Korea's SK Hynix also began trading on the Nasdaq in May. "New entrants to the market could broaden the focus beyond just the large tech companies known as the 'Magnificent Seven'," Benjamin Hall, vice president of alpha research at Segal Marco Advisors, told Reuters.
Despite Apple's rise, the broader market trended downward. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index fell 1.6% at midday, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.25% from Friday's open.
